Cycling Column: The economic benefits of cycling lanes – to Kildare

The following isn’t going to please the reactionary alternative facts crowd, because, you know, it’s facts.

One of the most common arguments against eliminating parking spaces in favour of cycling lanes is that it damages businesses.

The people behind those arguments are dead right. There will be an impact on business, except that it’s the opposite of the one they have in mind.

As the late great Christopher Hitchens observed once: “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

There is no available evidence that replacing parking spaces with cycling lanes reduces trade. But there is, thankfully, evidence that removing parking spaces actually increases trade by attracting pedestrians and cyclists. A new study of a neighbourhood in Toronto has proven this.